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Thousands of students from around the world will converge on the University of Colorado at ºù«ÍÞÊÓƵ campus May 22-25 to compete in the 23rd annual Odyssey of the Mind World Finals. 700 teams will participate in the event, which challenges students to come up with the most creative, original and imaginative ways to solve a selection of problems.

Michael Bender, a Princeton University professor of geosciences and a fellow of the American Geophysical Union, will present a new method of dating ice cores at the University of Colorado at ºù«ÍÞÊÓƵ on Friday, Feb. 22. Bender will speak at 4 p.m. in the auditorium of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, room 338. The talk is free and open to the public. A reception will follow.

Navajo star and constellation myths, including the story of the creation of stars, will be explored during live astronomy shows at Fiske Planetarium in March on the campus of the University of Colorado at ºù«ÍÞÊÓƵ. John Stocke, a CU-ºù«ÍÞÊÓƵ professor of astrophysical and planetary sciences, will present "Navajo Skies" at Fiske Planetarium on Friday, March 1, and Tuesday, March 5, at 7:30 p.m.

Two teams of CU-ºù«ÍÞÊÓƵ students have been awarded a total of more than $25,000 to develop and take their inventions to market under a grant program sponsored by the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance.

The chance of detecting life outside our own solar system probably is greater than discovering it on neighboring planets and moons like Mars or Europa, a moon of Jupiter, according to a University of Colorado at ºù«ÍÞÊÓƵ professor.

Painter Eugenio Dittborn will discuss the process of his painting Feb. 26 at 7:30 p.m. at the University of Colorado at ºù«ÍÞÊÓƵ in Sibell Wolle Fine Arts Building room N141. The presentation is titled "The 16th History of the Human Face (to Besiege)" and is free and open to the public. Dittborn's talk is part of the Fine Arts department's Visiting Artist Program.

After the collapse of the dot.com business sector last year, entrepreneurs and venture capitalists have been forced to regroup and come up with new ways to survive. Survival and other business strategies will be discussed on Feb. 25 at the 2nd annual "Future of High-Tech Startups" conference, to be hosted by the University of Colorado at ºù«ÍÞÊÓƵ School of Law's Silicon Flatirons Telecommunications Program.

Capoeira Angola grandmaster Joao Grande will host a free weekend workshop on the Afro-Brazilian folk art March 1-3 at the University of Colorado at ºù«ÍÞÊÓƵ. Capoeira Angola is an art form that combines martial arts with dance, music and ritual. Grande will lead a series of classes followed by a March 3 performance in Old Main Chapel from 3 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. Classes will be held in Carlson Gymnasium room 1B12. On March 1 a class will be held from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. and on March 2 classes will be from 10 a.m. to noon and 3 p.m. to 6 p.m.

An accomplished expert on Hinduism and comparative religion will reveal new findings and theories Feb. 26 at a free public lecture to be presented at CU-ºù«ÍÞÊÓƵ by the religious studies department. John Stratton Hawley, chair of the religion department at Columbia University's Barnard College and Ann Whitney Olin Professor of Religion, will discuss the meanings of summer vacation retreats and camp programs among various religious communities in America. The talk will begin at 7:30 p.m. in the Eaton Humanities Building, room 250, and a reception will follow.

Despite regional differences, continued study of a broad spectrum of evidence lends credence to climate warming theories, say climatologist Mark Serreze and glaciologist Ted Scambos of the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado at ºù«ÍÞÊÓƵ. The National Snow and Ice Data Center is part of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, based at CU-ºù«ÍÞÊÓƵ. Serreze and Scambos presented the finding at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Boston Feb. 16th.